Gendarmerie officer accused of leaking secret documents on Reyhanlı arrested

SİVAS / ISTANBUL

A gendarmerie officer suspected of leaking secret documents on terrorist activities in the southern Hatay province bordering Syria was arrested May 24, after being taken into custody a day earlier. 

Officials accuse the private of taking the photos of the documents and sending them via e-mail to the Turkish hacker group RedHack, which then made them public on May 22. 

Doğan News Agency reported that a second private was also interrogated by military prosecutors in the Central Anatolian province of Sivas, and was later released.

"The case is not a hacking, but rather a leak," ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Hüseyin Çelik had said May 23.

The documents belonging to the Gendarmerie Intelligence Department claimed that an anti-government group in Syria with links to al-Qaeda was planning a car bomb attack that might occur in Turkey. Interior Minister Muammer Güler confirmed the authenticity of the documents, but denied that they were related to the bombings that killed 51 people in Reyhanlı on May 11.

RedHack claimed via Twitter that the private arrested was named Utku Kali, but strongly denied that he was involved in the leak of the documents. "We say it clearly, we do not know the private named Utku Kali. He didn't have any link to us, either directly or indirectly. The AKP and its military is committing a crime," the group wrote on its Twitter account.